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California Rep. Pete Stark, who chairs a key subcommittee, acknowledged Thursday night that the official rollout won't happen this week, as planned, but rather early next week.
AP Photo

Three top Blue Dogs – Florida Rep. Allan Boyd, Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross and Tennessee Rep. John Tanner – laid out their concerns at the White House in a Wednesday meeting with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Ross said Thursday night after emerging from his extended session with the speaker and other leaders.

The tone of the other missives were less confrontational and concerned smaller brush fires that have flared up this week as Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee huddled in Chairman Charles Rangel's (D-N.Y.) Capitol office for days to build consensus on a series of tax increases to help generate at least $600 billion to help pay for the bill. The group will meet again Friday in the hopes of finalizing their revenue raisers.

More than 60 Democrats signed a letter authored by freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson of Illinois and second-term Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina asking Waxman to jettison his plan to reinstate drug price controls to help low-income seniors. Instead, they are asking Waxman, Rangel and Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) to support the drug industry’s offer to spend $30 billion help cover those costs – a deal that is backed by the White House and the Senate Finance Committee.

Waxman wanted to reinstate the price controls to save the government tens of billions of dollars over the next decade – money currently paid to prescription-drug makers – so that he could plow those savings back into the system and close a sizeable gap in the current government-funded prescription-drug program. The industry was hoping to avert such controls by pledging $30 billion to help seniors and another $50 billion to help pay for health reform.

As Democrats on the Ways and Means panel haggled over the best ways to pay for the bill, most Democrats worked to shape a public option that would offer an alternative to private insurance.

The moderates in the New Democrat Coalition bucked fellow caucus members to make the case that a public plan should harness Medicare’s distribution network – something caucus leaders rejected in an earlier list of priorities because it would give the new system a competitive advantage over current providers.

“The public option must have access to a provider network that will allow it to compete, from the beginning, with private insurers,” the 22 Democrats wrote their leaders. “Without some connection to an established provider network, like Medicare, a public option will never be able to offer real choice to businesses and individual consumers.”

In a similar vein, the 20 rural and Western Democrats, led by Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, sent Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) a letter on Thursday to request a meeting so they can make their case for why the legislation should remedy inequities in the current system in which communities that provide low-cost, high-quality health care receive less money from Medicare than high-cost, low-quality, largely urban, communities.

"Our 'low-cost, high-quality' states are setting the national standard for Medicare, yet we are penalized by the current Medicare reimbursement formula," they argue in the letter.

"I do not want to see these inequities included in a public plan," McCollum told POLITICO. "That makes no sense at all."

Readers' Comments (70)

Here we go! Its days like this that I am glad I left the democratic party and went Independant. These democrats are just like republicans in every way, except of course the republicans have spines built into their backs. They just dont have any brains. Democrats are just the opposite. If you gave them a gun they would blow their own head off by accident. These cowards are going to lose a fight that they are in with themselves. I cant believe it!!!! Such stupidity. I was too young to understand why everyone talks badly about the Carter years when the democrats controlled everything. Were they this stupid then? Anyone?

I would be all for the government controlled health bill IF ALL politicians tried it for at least 3 years no other health plan just their own plan and when we see how that works for them maybe we taxpayers will get on board. Come to think about it, that would also be a good way to eliminate a large portion of these corrupt, criminal politicians.

Obama and his political cronies are placing huge, long term financial burdens upon Americans. This administration is purposely directing this once great vibrant economy into a snail’s pace growth rate. The sole reason is to preserve, solidify and increase the Democrat’s voting base – It’s that simple and obvious! This egregious strategy is designed to benefit certain groups – mostly increasing welfare recipients, state and Federal governments and certain selected businesses which will ultimately benefit from the Keynesian government directed funds.

Hence, this pro-Marxist economic philosophy is creating greater numbers of dependents and will ultimately benefit hard-liner democrat voting districts, political contributors and voters, thus ensuring the chances of political power for the Democrats for years to come.

For example, the administration understands and knows cutting taxes, especially payroll and corporate tax rates, would promote significant, long term economic growth and prosperity to most Americans, including some Democrats. But this approach is antithetical to left-wing, income transfer and vote buying Democrat politicians; who, for the most part, are only interested in preserving power, national influence and themselves. Let’s not forget that there are Republicans who also fit this description.

I really don’t have a problem with Obama attempting to place his policies of taking from the productive and transferring to the non-productive. He did win the election, but I directly place blame on the current House of Rep's and Senators who are behind the scenes writing legislation designed to punish the productive and transfer income to the non-productive - their voting bases.

What I find most destructive is how and why these members of congress continually pass laws which artificially attempt to create markets for goods and services most people don't or refuse to buy, but are forced because of no other alternatives.

Finally, when was the last time Obama, his cronies or any of the Whitehouse staff, including certain members of Congress (Pelosi, Dodd, Schumer, Reid, Barney Frank, et al) ever proudly utter either "Freedom or Liberty"?

Obama hanging on to the details until the last minute to avoid laughter at what the bill contains!

Anyone with half a brain would look at the bill, notice that our forthright, honest and respectable members of Congress exempted themselves from the Lousy Health Care System they want for you and me and laugh or barf!

Obama is the biggest joke of this century and has accomplished nothing but spending and disasters.

85% of Americans have health care insurance and the majority of them are happy with it. If these elitist slug politicians like socialized medicine so much.......................why don't they drop their own special plans that the taxpayers have been footing the bill for.

I didn't vote for this dope, I don't know many who did, but right about now....................I'd be too ashamed to admit it in public.

I hope the hopeless lazy dopes of America are happy with the "changes" we have been "blessed" with. Luckily, there's no more money to be squeezed from the working population.................without risking the onset of a complete revolution.

would be all for the government controlled health bill IF ALL politicians tried it for at least 3 years no other health plan just their own plan and when we see how that works for them maybe we taxpayers will get on board. Come to think about it, that would also be a good way to eliminate a large portion of these corrupt, criminal politicians.

This would be a good thing because many of them would reach their "promised land" while waiting their turn. To make things even better.....................the taxpayers would get to decide which treatments we would pay for and the ones where it would not be cost-effective.

It's leaking out that -- you'll never guess -- the bill is full of pork. Anything that could possibly be releated in any way to the subject of "health" has been snuck in there... The Congressman Foghorn Memorial Bike Trail, streetlights, playgrounds, bridges to somewhere, you-name-it.

These politicians cannot help themselves. They are deranged. And they are spending our money using sums they "guessed on the back of an envelope."

The "LIBERAL SOCIALIST DUMOCRATS" must be worried about 2010. They could care less about the American people. The self-preservation mode is kicking in. Obama is losing the independents that got him elected. They can see the writing on the wall.

Jul. 9, 2009 - 10:05 PM ESTHere we go! Its days like this that I am glad I left the democratic party and went Independant. These democrats are just like republicans in every way, except of course the republicans have spines built into their backs. They just dont have any brains. Democrats are just the opposite. If you gave them a gun they would blow their own head off by accident. These cowards are going to lose a fight that they are in with themselves. I cant believe it!!!! Such stupidity. I was too young to understand why everyone talks badly about the Carter years when the democrats controlled everything. Were they this stupid then? Anyone?

dirtyrearend: I was in my twenties during the Carter Years! See if this sounds vaguely familiar to where we are headed today!: Jimmy Carter's Inferior Years by Fulton Lewis

05/23/2007

Last weekend, former President Jimmy Carter criticized George W. Bush’s presidency as “the worst in history” in international relations, and told a BBC radio audience that British Prime Minister’s loyalty to Bush was “abominable.” Blair, he said, had been “loyal, blind, apparently subservient.”

It was the fourth time in the last six years that Carter has cast Bush as our “worst” president ever. He has inadvertently done us a favor by reminding us that there was a very ugly era when things were far worse than they are today -- the period of 1976 to 1980, known as “The Carter Years.”

At a time when the Washington establishment was the target of widespread public disgust -- with the Vietnam war, Watergate and the Nixon resignation -- Carter’s campaign emphad that he was an “outsider” and that strategy helped him edge out Gerald Ford in the 1976 race. Carter had huge Democrat majorities in the House and Senate. In 1976, Democrats held 292 House seats, compared to 143 for the GOP. Their lead in the Senate was 61 to 38 with one Independent. In 1978, the margin was reduced slightly: 277 to 158 in the House and 57/42/1 in the Senate. Getting congressional approval of his proposals should have been almost automatic. But Carter’s complete inexperience with the operations of the federal government were painfully obvious from his first day in the White House. His first priority was a package of tax, welfare and civil service “reforms”. He was unable to get it through Congress. He failed again when he attempted to get bills passed creating a consumer protection agency or an attempt to control rising hospital costs.

In the wake of OPEC doubling and then redoubling petroleum prices, Carter’s energy legislation also failed primarily because it would have brought the nation’s oil and gas industries under a complex web of federal restrictions and regulations. He did succeed in setting up the Departments of Energy and Education but neither emerged as anything more than new add-ons to an already top-heavy federal bureaucracy.

If the “proof of the pudding is in the eating,” the statistics on the Carter Administration were nauseating. Automobile prices increased 72%. New house prices went up 67%. In 1979 alone, gasoline prices increased 60%. The inflation rate went from 6.8% in 1977, to 7.6% in 1978, to 11.5% in 1979, to 12.4% in 1980. National productivity declined sharply. The unemployment rate was roughly double what it is today under President Bush. Interest rates soared. By the time Carter left office, the prime rate was 21.5% -- a new record.

On July 15, 1979, the television networks aired Carter’s infamous “Malaise Speech” --written by Chris Matthews, currently the host of “Hardball” -- which declared that the nation had reached a “crisis of confidence.” It was widely criticized as being a “huge depressant” at a time when America needed encouragement and a pep talk. Three days later, Carter called for the resignations of all of his Cabinet members. To further underscore the crisis atmosphere, he symbolically lowered the thermostats in the White House and other federal facilities to 65 degrees in the winter, and raised them in the summer to 78 degrees. Promotional pictures showing the President in a heavy sweater were supposed to inspire everyone to “follow the leader”. The national Christmas Tree was not lighted in 1979 and 1980. But few were impressed and even fewer were motivated.

In his first month in office, Carter cut the defense budget by $6 billion. He then proceeded to order a severe reduction in our forces stationed in South Korea to just 14,000 air force personnel. When Major General John Singlaug, chief of staff of our operations in South Korea, criticized the plan, Carter fired him. (Carter himself abandoned the plan after removing only 3,600 troops.)

It is Carter’s signature on the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 which surrendered U.S. control of that waterway to the Panamanian government.

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Carter flexed the U.S. muscle, declaring: “Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” To show the Russians that he meant business, Carter prohibited our athletes from participating in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow which, of course, enabled the Soviets to capture even more gold medals.

And now he calls the Bush policy “the worst in history.” Carter stated: “We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered.” What he attacks now seems to be almost identical to the “Carter Doctrine” of 1979. Maybe, he’s forgotten.

Carter’s worst failure -- the one which ultimately was his downfall -- was his pathetic mishandling of the Iranian government’s seizure of our embassy in Teheran in November, 1979. His attempted military rescue of the 52 Americans held hostage there was an embarrassing disaster. The hostages were eventually freed within minutes of Ronald Reagan being sworn in as Carter’s successor.

I suspect that Carter’s current campaign of attacking Bush is because he himself has been so widely cast as “the worst President in history” that he is desperately trying to drag someone else down to that position. Carter’s horrendous record is going to make that very difficult, if not impossible.

Thank you for this post I was only 16 so I really didn't realize what Carter had done even though I've heard people say he was the worst President ever. It does sound very familiar to what is happening today but today it seems like it is even worse. I had to post it again.

dirtyrearend: I was in my twenties during the Carter Years! See if this sounds vaguely familiar to where we are headed today!: Jimmy Carter's Inferior Years by Fulton Lewis

05/23/2007

Last weekend, former President Jimmy Carter criticized George W. Bush?s presidency as ?the worst in history? in international relations, and told a BBC radio audience that British Prime Minister?s loyalty to Bush was ?abominable.? Blair, he said, had been ?loyal, blind, apparently subservient.?

It was the fourth time in the last six years that Carter has cast Bush as our ?worst? president ever. He has inadvertently done us a favor by reminding us that there was a very ugly era when things were far worse than they are today -- the period of 1976 to 1980, known as ?The Carter Years.?

At a time when the Washington establishment was the target of widespread public disgust -- with the Vietnam war, Watergate and the Nixon resignation -- Carter?s campaign emphad that he was an ?outsider? and that strategy helped him edge out Gerald Ford in the 1976 race. Carter had huge Democrat majorities in the House and Senate. In 1976, Democrats held 292 House seats, compared to 143 for the GOP. Their lead in the Senate was 61 to 38 with one Independent. In 1978, the margin was reduced slightly: 277 to 158 in the House and 57/42/1 in the Senate. Getting congressional approval of his proposals should have been almost automatic. But Carter?s complete inexperience with the operations of the federal government were painfully obvious from his first day in the White House. His first priority was a package of tax, welfare and civil service ?reforms?. He was unable to get it through Congress. He failed again when he attempted to get bills passed creating a consumer protection agency or an attempt to control rising hospital costs.

In the wake of OPEC doubling and then redoubling petroleum prices, Carter?s energy legislation also failed primarily because it would have brought the nation?s oil and gas industries under a complex web of federal restrictions and regulations. He did succeed in setting up the Departments of Energy and Education but neither emerged as anything more than new add-ons to an already top-heavy federal bureaucracy.

If the ?proof of the pudding is in the eating,? the statistics on the Carter Administration were nauseating. Automobile prices increased 72%. New house prices went up 67%. In 1979 alone, gasoline prices increased 60%. The inflation rate went from 6.8% in 1977, to 7.6% in 1978, to 11.5% in 1979, to 12.4% in 1980. National productivity declined sharply. The unemployment rate was roughly double what it is today under President Bush. Interest rates soared. By the time Carter left office, the prime rate was 21.5% -- a new record.

On July 15, 1979, the television networks aired Carter?s infamous ?Malaise Speech? --written by Chris Matthews, currently the host of ?Hardball? -- which declared that the nation had reached a ?crisis of confidence.? It was widely criticized as being a ?huge depressant? at a time when America needed encouragement and a pep talk. Three days later, Carter called for the resignations of all of his Cabinet members. To further underscore the crisis atmosphere, he symbolically lowered the thermostats in the White House and other federal facilities to 65 degrees in the winter, and raised them in the summer to 78 degrees. Promotional pictures showing the President in a heavy sweater were supposed to inspire everyone to ?follow the leader?. The national Christmas Tree was not lighted in 1979 and 1980. But few were impressed and even fewer were motivated.

In his first month in office, Carter cut the defense budget by $6 billion. He then proceeded to order a severe reduction in our forces stationed in South Korea to just 14,000 air force personnel. When Major General John Singlaug, chief of staff of our operations in South Korea, criticized the plan, Carter fired him. (Carter himself abandoned the plan after removing only 3,600 troops.)

It is Carter?s signature on the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 which surrendered U.S. control of that waterway to the Panamanian government.

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Carter flexed the U.S. muscle, declaring: ?Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.? To show the Russians that he meant business, Carter prohibited our athletes from participating in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow which, of course, enabled the Soviets to capture even more gold medals.

And now he calls the Bush policy ?the worst in history.? Carter stated: ?We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered.? What he attacks now seems to be almost identical to the ?Carter Doctrine? of 1979. Maybe, he?s forgotten.

Carter?s worst failure -- the one which ultimately was his downfall -- was his pathetic mishandling of the Iranian government?s seizure of our embassy in Teheran in November, 1979. His attempted military rescue of the 52 Americans held hostage there was an embarrassing disaster. The hostages were eventually freed within minutes of Ronald Reagan being sworn in as Carter?s successor.

I suspect that Carter?s current campaign of attacking Bush is because he himself has been so widely cast as ?the worst President in history? that he is desperately trying to drag someone else down to that position. Carter?s horrendous record is going to make that very difficult, if not impossible.

Oh hurry, hurry obama has to have it now, he heard the sky was falling, again. The dems know if they do this they can kiss the Senate bye, bye. We are fed up with their antics and are going to get them voted out! they are dropping in the polls and people are waking up to see this horrible nightmare called the Democratic congress and administration! Some one save us! The ice bears are drowning and algore is just sitting around counting his mullah...100 million, gee bet Tippsy is doing a lot of shopping nowadays. Can't algore get a face lift? he is looking like a monster, Belagosi comes to mind. all this reckless spending and now printing money!! for god's sake suppose we could stop over at the print shop and just pick up a page of money, we could say it is strictly for wallpaper....and of course the drowning ice bears...can't walk on land, it's the legs are too bent or something....

Oh hurry, hurry obama has to have it now, he heard the sky was falling, again. The dems know if they do this they can kiss the Senate bye, bye. We are fed up with their antics and are going to get them voted out! they are dropping in the polls and people are waking up to see this horrible nightmare called the Democratic congress and administration! Some one save us! The ice bears are drowning and algore is just sitting around counting his mullah...100 million, gee bet Tippsy is doing a lot of shopping nowadays. Can't algore get a face lift? he is looking like a monster, Belagosi comes to mind. all this reckless spending and now printing money!! for god's sake suppose we could stop over at the print shop and just pick up a page of money, we could say it is strictly for wallpaper....and of course the drowning ice bears...can't walk on land, it's the legs are too bent or something....

Oh and I'm sure that you were yelling at the republicans when they started this whole mess and bankrupted us, right?

Oh and I'm sure that you were yelling at the republicans when they started this whole mess and bankrupted us, right?

Bush was a clown and things weren't dandy, but at least he left us with a debt less than a trillion.

Rather than find solutions to put out a fire, our new administration has found ways to turn this into a full blown blaze. I guess they didn't want to waste the "opportunity" to smuggle in new spending programs that will cripple us for a decade.

It's just boils down to common-sense. We can't spend what's not there and until the elitists are beaten down by the taxpayers...............they'll continue to act wrecklessly.

Obama inherited a bad situation and much to his delight...................he invented new ways to make it terminal!

The next bill should be that there is a maximum page number for any bill and that if you vote yes then you have to have read the bill in its entirety, after any amendments have actually been placed in the correct place.

How is it that a "health czar" Nancy-Ann can be in charge of $1,000,000,000,000.00 or more(d%mn thats a lot of zeros) without being confirmed by the legislature?

There is one country in Europe that has great health care system. There is not a public option, only Government mandates that a business must provide basic health care for its employees, and that the providers all have to follow certain guidelines. Gee wiz something like that wouldn't cost a Trillion $ thats $1,000,000,000,000.00

but then again with our government maybe it would.

One of the best ways to control the people is to put them in debt.

They are also one of the leaders in green technology. I dont think its from tax and trade though.